


My Trinity

by daaarkknight (orphan_account)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dominance, Established Relationship, Eventual Fluff, F/M, M/M, Multi, Submission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22432351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/daaarkknight
Summary: What binds three of the World's Greatest Heroes together? Where lie the seeds of their friendship, their love, their passion? Was it ever even a choice?
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Clark Kent, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Kudos: 37
Collections: 8. Gotham ships Bruce Wayne x Batman, Batman, Bruce Wayne, Favorite Batman Fics, Wonder Woman Love Challenges, Wonder bats, batman orignal characters





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in this particular pairing, so please bear with me? Also, any constructive feedback is altogether so welcome, I can't even... :)

_Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war,_  
_Bring forth the lots, cast in the spacious orb;_  
_Th' Angel of Fate turns them with mighty hands,_  
_And casts them out upon the darken'd earth!_  
_Prepare, prepare!_

The battle swoons around them, three hundred against three. The parademons rush in from all sides like a river of black, heavy sludge, and the three stand, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, stemming the rushing, roaring tide, the clawing and the shrieking, the writhing masses of scaly bodies; each one of them feels the burn of heavy shoulders rolling back against the mass as ineffable as the end. And they push, and they push, and headway is made, inch by frothing inch, the gnash of heavy teeth against stern jaws, the red blaze of hellfire in the heroes’ eyes, the smell of raw ligament and bone emanating from their suits. Superman’s eyes glow with a familiar incinerating glare, as his fists pummel and knock and tear limb from limb; the Hell Bat stands, majestic and glorious, and only half-beaten, by his side, red streaming from the cracked armor on his face, his guns ablaze with cold shining fury; the Goddess stands by his side with her arms locked into fists, sweat streaming from her forehead, her hair flying behind her in dark, dense waves, rushes forward and backward as the tide ebbs and flows like a primitive dance, a fierce smile on her face. They are one unity, one organism and three heads, a wild joy beating through three veins, one heart. Each time one of them weakens, the other two shift their backs to give him or her some rest, taking the brunt of the attack onto themselves. Superman’s suit is ripped and torn in three parallel gashes made by a parademon’s claws; his chest has healed, but it soon spills out again in a vermilion flood when another sinks his nails deep into Superman’s writhing, exposed, freshly healed, pink flesh. Superman screams, tearing the squirming reptilian shell of gristle and bone away from his chest. It makes a small wailing mewl; Wonder Woman puts it out of its misery with her sword. She looks around. Darkseid’s minions are numberless, but they do exhaust, and they must have killed at least five hundred of them—they seem to be retreating toward the purple, engorged tear in the fabric of reality that they emerged from. But at a cost: Batman dispatches the last soldier through the portal and turns around, only to fall to his knees with a soft groan and a thud, as the cowl encasing his head hits the floor.

“Bruce,” says Kal softly, as Diana cradles Clark’s head and lets him down gently onto the ground, then rushes over to Bruce, graceful even in hurry. As usual, Bruce has taken the worst. The shell casing of is armor is coming apart, his breathing is a ragged clasp of pain, and blood, dark and too stubborn, floods out of the cracks in his suit. Diana, looking between Bruce and Clark, decides, and swinging into action, takes up Bruce into her arms and springs into the air like a feather, studded with purpose. They fly over clouds puffed up on blue sky, and under gentle whispers of rain, they fly between day and night, through star-studded twilight, and they reach a city of granite spires twisting into the sky, hostile maws snarling from the solidity of its buildings, a city eternally between dusk and dawn. They fly into the gaping jaws of the BatCave, through the shimmering surface of the water shielding it from the scrutiny of the world.

“Clark,” says Bruce. The smell of guano and fresh earth fills Diana’s nostrils as they enter the cave. Mellow dull golden light spills over his shattered form; from the gloom of the rough granite shadows an old man emerges, firm of stride. He switches on the lamps on a flat rectangular metal surface that resembles a tanning bed, except for its coldness to the touch, and the stark white of the old man’s gloves along with his sharp, shiny instruments.

“I need to go,” says Diana, just as the old man says “thank you”.

“You’re welcome,” she says, and smiles her most winsome smile. The man bows, and turns his back to her briskly, bending over Bruce. Diana has the urge to see Bruce one last time, just as he was—his jaw broken, his lip split, one ugly bruise over his eye—just to tell him how much she thought of him like this, how glorious he was. But she pushes away the thought. Clark is waiting for her. Clark the Invincible, the Indestructible. How much fun she would have, reminding him of this, one day. When he was better, of course. Smiling, she lifts off, the cool night wind stroking her cheek as she makes it out into the open seagull air. She flies toward the cliff; toward the dawn.

Not that she would ever admit it to the boys, or even to herself, but a part of her just loves this. The rescue. That these strong, stubborn men _need_ her, and that she needs them. In equal measure, equal part. In perfect balance. 

Three in one. 


	2. The Garden of Love

_I went to the Garden of Love._   
_And saw what I never had seen:_   
_A Chapel was built in the midst,_   
_Where I used to play on the green._

_And the gates of this Chapel were shut,_   
_And Thou shalt not, writ over the door;_   
_So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,_   
_That so many sweet flowers bore,_

_And I saw it was filled with graves,_   
_And tomb-stones where flowers should be:_   
_And priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,_   
_And binding with briars, my joys; desires._

Clark Kent sits at the back of the fourth form in his knockoff Nikes, twirling glitter pens in his hands. Red and blue. His father's injunction stands in his head - "I know it's hard, son. But you know, you know your mam and I have talked about this and we've decided. You can't... _stand out_ , son. In any way."

_In any way._

The smell of fresh walnut and oak drifting in the windows heralds the coming summer.

"Clark Kent!" The teacher, a stout woman with greasy tufts of hair stuck to her bulging, lined neck, calls out

Clark flinches. The name sounds too heavy, too hard on the air, like it violently ripped all the shreds of his remaining being. Made him a name. _Clark Kent._

I'm not Clark Kent! he wants to scream. I'm not Clark Kent not Clark Kent not Clark Kent not Clark not Kent not not not Not Clark Kent. 

He lifts his head softly. A small boy, wearing shy glasses two times too big for his size. "Yes, ma'am?" he asks softly. 

She rolls her eyes. "Do I have to repeat myself _every_ time for you Kent?" Clark looks around. His classmates like him, but that doesn't stop them from finding his scrapes hilarious, and now light, malice-free laughter ripples through the classroom--pigtailed and pinafored bright eyed Lana, sulky, bubble-gum chewing Lois, too-large always squirming Pete--and he feels like the proverbial King of the Kingdom, the one who has it all. He feels tempted to share in their laughter. But he knows that will only be seen by the teacher as mutinous, so he bites his lip.

"Sorry ma'am," he says instead, looking piteously shy, like he's about to sink into his seat. Outside the wide open windows, a bird warbles. It sounds like what Clark imagines a frog would sound like if it sang.

"What's the chapel?" she asks. "What's Blake talking about?"

Clark remembers The Injunction. Then Blake's words brush against his ear. _Thou shalt not, writ on the door._

_Isn't there not a world where I am playing amongst flowers instead of tombstones?_

Clark raises his hand, rather superfluously; a renewed chuckle circulates. 

"Blake is talking about how the freedom and joy of innocence is lost when mankind comes to fear it, and imposes set laws on themselves, and bury their desires in the garden of their former delights..." 

"Yes?" says the teacher with interest. Clark sees Lois admiring him out of the corner of his eye. He blushes, and looks down. The rest of the children are either fidgety or restless. The discussion is going over their head. _Innocence._ _Does not know itself when it is being talked about._

_Does that mean I am no longer innocent?_

"Authority," Clark blurts out. "It's talking about authority." He puts his head down again. 

"Very _good_ , Clark." Ms. Millers says, spreading her syllables like jam across her wide mouth, her face breaking into beams of rare joy. Clark feels happy, and embarrassed. "Very few kids are actually capable of that observation. Now did you read that somewhere, or was that your own...?"

_Do not stand out. Do not stand out._

"It...I read it," Clark stammers, blushing beetroot. Ms. Millers' face loses some of the joyful admiration; like an old lamp, it settles back into the dust. " _I knew it_ ," Lois says with a vicious whisper, nudging him from behind with her painfully pointy elbow.

Clark shrugs.

* * *

"Clark Kent!" Perry White screams from inside the white cubicle. Clark can see him buried face in a fourteen tons of paperwork down at his desk.

"I'm coming!" Clark calls, putting down his morning mug of joe next to the machine and hurrying to Perry's side, but not before Lois manages to sneak in a smarmy wink.

Just then, someone calls "Superman! Help!" It's a strong, supple voice. Probably a female's. Clark would put it somewhere around twenty. It's coming from the shipping district, maybe? Clark can't be sure. 

He blinks at Perry mildly. "I have to go to the bathroom," he says.

Perry scowls and huffs his displeasure. His very mustache seems to say "why can't you go here?"

Clark rushes out of the steam-puffed room, the acrid tingle in his nostrils. He can hear Perry cursing behind him, hear the strong pull on cigar, 

He changes in the bathroom, standing on top of the lidded bowl. Looking from the top of the partition, he sees his face opposite lit in the mirror: his glasses skewed, his lips parted in haste, his hair all mussed up like he'd been trying to fit his head through the filters on the coffee machine.

Clark sighs. He eyes the bathroom grate. 

"This better be worth it."

Last time it had been a harried single mother who couldn't herd all of her kids to bed. The kids had been over-caffeinated, and were bounding off of each other like billiard balls. The mother had screamed her throat out, and was out of ideas. She hadn't really thought Superman would've shown up. She 'only did it to scare the kids'.

When Superman _did_ show up, he had been more than willing to stay and help. He'd tucked the wide-eyed little ones in, sung a lullaby. He'd even offered to do the dishes.

"You're too nice," Lois had said to him one day, when Clark had been guilt-tripped into carrying her puff piece load for the day while she hunted down a lead on a bribery scandal thing. Clark had lost track of which one, at that point.

"You need to stop being a doormat," she had said, while walking all over him. 

"Yes ma'am."

She'd sighed dramatically. 

"Some people are past hope."

"No they're not," he whispers to himself now, touching the symbol on his chest. The crest of hope. _His_ crest.

"No they're not."


	3. Chapter 3

A black charred ship lies marooned in grey, grisly water. Masts flutter with idle wind. Water flows through midnight blue starched coats, emptily discarded in heaps. A pile of arms and legs lies in a messy heap over a pyramid of chipped logs, dry and crackling with a flame growing from its belly, upwards. Diana of Themyscira picks up the last shards of the Nazi flag from the former KMS Admiral Scheer (painted on a hull overturned like the underside of a blue whale in large, clean letters) and thrusts it into the bonfire. The fire's diaphanous flames edging and touching the sand with blue, orange and gold wet ribbons shimmering on the grains, illumining each particle. Diana can feel no pain as her hand thrusts into the fire with each piece of uniform, belt, saber, medallion. She has stripped the soldiers before cremating them in one heap, as disgraceful a posthumous situation as she could imagine, short of the outright barbarism of mutilation. She doesn't look once she has tossed the bodies into the fire, but in her mind's eye she can picture them shriveling up like grotesque, fleshy Rafflesia flowers. The pungent smell of charred bone and sinew attacks her senses, her eyes fill up with pungent tears.

She looks up. The bodies of her mother and sisters are on the great green hill opposite the narrow strip of beach, also laid for a pyre, but ceremoniously, with the appropriate garlands, heads wreathed with the appropriate flowers, dressed in simple white gowns, with gold trim, their swords by their sides. Each one of them is laid in the exact posture she had fallen on the battlefield, with all her wounds, still fresh, still seeping into innocent virginal gowns. The wind whistles merrily now, and Diana turns towards the sea, her tears in her mouth, her heart stinging her eyes. The ocean welcomes her with the open arms of a mother, a sister, a friend. It's aquamarine surface sparkles with a child's playful treasured wink, the clear glass of it's tropical mysteries beckon to her, violet coral and ruby hair, glazed river serpents streaming in wanton freedom. _Join me_ , it says. _I will care of you, my child. My only._

Diana falls to her knees. A sob chokes its way out of her throat. She digs her hands into the rough sand and leans forward. Her tears, heavy as iron, plop forwards onto the fresh yellow sand. Nature's innocence and man's guilt overwhelms her in a fresh wave of bitterness. All Diana had ever known, ever seen, ever loved, gone. Gone in one shower of cold metal bits, her sisters fell to her side in heaps, like glorious birds, birds that would never, could never take flight evermore. She had shaken one German soldier, when he was bleeding his guts out, holding his intestines in his hands after she'd pierced his intestines with her sword. "Warum? _Warum?!_ Why?"

"Befehle," he'd muttered, and closed his eyes. 

_Orders._

Diana was familiar with the word. She'd slit his throat, easing his passage out of mercy. He looked barely sixteen, his chin just sprouting hair, his Adam's apple not yet fully grown. 

Diana sits there. The fire on the hill and the fire on the sand both ebb and flow at the same time, giving each other company. Her mother's crown, a simple coronet of delicate gold filigree, rests on top of the pile of wood. Her mother's body has turned to ash, and mingled with the logs of wood, trickling down into the soil where it came from. Ashes to ashes. 

And dust to dust. 

Diana lifts her voice in a clear lilting tones of ancient grief, the ritual threnos of the lone female mourner, the Greek words flowing out of her soul like wine, rending the air, stabbing it with only too human in its intensity. The goddess, surrounded by the ashes of her mother and sisters, mourns aloud, a zesty fervour of voice shaping the clouds in the air and calling down flocks of birds to circle over her head, like a horizontal halo, acclaiming her. Diana sings on, unheedful, unmindful, her voice stretching and breaking, remembering, always swimming, always breaking on the rock shores of the past, the kiss tender, the hand outreached. Her body feels drained, she does not possess the energy, the sheer force of will, to slap her face, or pull her hair, or tear her clothes, for who is watching? The ancient gods are all dead. Even her father Zeus retreated to Olympia millennia ago. 

She is alone. 

The moon rises behind her, as the notes of the song come to a close. It's light reflects off the waves curling with black and silver foam. The voices of the ocean raise themselves to her. The black grass seems like a bog now, weighing her down. The vast ocean is empty and restless, now under the moon's spectral light, it is all skeleton no heart. The black deeps look like an endless bowl of ink, waiting to mark her, to engulf her, make her its own. It's roar, its breaking waves, the curl of its beckoning steel hilts scraping against the slate cliffs calls out to her, grits out her name.

Diana heads to the fine top of the promontory, jutting out like an iron dagger, piercing the starless night. She stands, her hair whipped into a frenzy, her simple black mourner's clamys wrapped around a naked body as cold and stark as marble against it, the salt spray of the ocean against her skin as direct as her grief. Her emptiness engulfs her now, as the night of her life stretches on in one never-ending desert of anguish, stretching out on all sides for eternity. 

She springs off the cliff in one agile leap. The ocean dashes towards her, the sharp, brazen air whipping at her hair and shoulders, exhilarating like a final mad dash into the abyss. She wraps the clamys around herself tighter as she launches herself headlong into the bleak water. Saltwater scrapes on the insides of her throat as she gulps it down, the water embracing her body from inside and out, chilling her marrow in her bones. As tender as a dead lover.

She sinks.

* * *

Far away, long ago. An ages past, forever ago, so long. It was an aeon, before Diana of Themyscira found love, found heart. Her heart always fed remorseful and bitter, on the events of the darkest night of her life. But now there is freshness, and a new hope on the horizon, in the form of stars. She has believed long enough. The sea embraced her, the sky darkened for her, for several long years she lay hidden like the Ocean's secret, cradled by it like a frozen seashell. But when she finally arose, it was to a great cry and a great howl, and for the first time, the Goddess Diana ventured out of her comfort zone into man's world--and found cities laid to waste, a charred heap, so many of humanity's greatest achievements--the Cathedral of Santa Maria, the Colosseum, the Lady Liberty! The children crying for their parents, the families on either sides of an uncrossable barrier, the news channels constantly cycling anchors calling it Armeggedon. The End of the World. Doomsday. They chorus with a desperation in their eyes Diana has never seen before-- _where is our savior?_

And Diana flies. She flies over oceans and mountains, swamps and wastelands, to the source, the epicentre, of the latest attacks. She has the instincts of a trained warrior combined with the enthusiasm of a young girl heading to her first major battle. But it does not prepare her for what she sees. It is a monster of no natural proportions--a beast as incarnate as the Earth itself, and as placid in its danger. But she, or some inner core of her, recognizes it instantly. The red angry chaotic eyes, the scales of monstrous proportions. This is no monster of Earth. This is Revenge incarnate. It's objective is not destruction; there is method to its mad rage. Its objective is _war._

Ares.

She lands, effortlessly, her bustier bulging with the weight of her breasts (she doesn't remember it's being so tight before), emblazoned with the symbol of her father Zeus: the eagle, her hands wrapped around her riata, her mother's Lasso of Truth, the one she had taught Diana to balance truth and justice--she lands, aching for the fight in her bones, her flesh singing for blood. The behemoth looms over her, barely fifty feet away and yet casting a shadow like a hoarse volcano. And then she sees it. Or _him_.

The figure is light but fierce, flying and zipping around the monster, fighting with a rough sort of weariness, like he's been at it for hours. He's wearing a...for lack of better words...a _costume_. His underpants are red, and are outside his blue pants, for some reason. Diana blushes--she knows she isn't supposed to look, but she can't help admiring the thick ripple of muscles revealed when the man flexes his thighs, as he flies around the grounded monster, testing for weaknesses in its scaly hide. He seems to be talking, his lips are moving, but Diana can't hear what he's saying. She flies closer.

And now Diana sees another man. He is...not doing anything. He stands with his hands crossed over his chest. His armor is _actually_ armor, what look like thick plates of jointed platinum, stygian the color of crow. A symbol lies flat across his chestplate--two wings, two claws, one head. The man stands as if there is not a mountain of fleshless inescapable death looming right in front of him. She feels nonplussed. But a closer look reveals that the cloaked, hooded figure's lips are moving, he seems to be giving directions to the man in red and blue. _Test this, try that._

The creature now advances, its every step sending shock waves rippling through the ground, as if it were the surface of a sea. Magma shoots up out of the ground, and Diana flies straight into the thick of the battle, between the man in the flying underwear suit and the man in the bat-like crow suit. She wraps her lasso around her shoulders tight, then swings it across and over the Doomsday's head. The lightning string tightens around its neck; and both men turn to look at her as if _she_ is the strange one, and what they had been doing so far had been normal. 

"Hello," she says, just as both men turn to look at each other and ask with a tone of intimate confidentiality "she with you?"

"No, I am not with either of you," she clarifies. 

It doesn't take long after that. 

Diana, and the men, who introduce themselves as 'Superman' and 'Batman' (she laughs at that joke, only for them to look painfully hurt and bemused), fall into a pattern that hardly needs introducing: the one called 'Batman' seems to infuriate Doomsday the most, so he acts like bait while Superman and--well, Diana, her name now seems plain to her, and when she tries to explain, in the thick of the battle, her voice carrying over the din easily as smooth and sound as silk, that she is actually a princess, as well as Zeus' daughter, and yes Zeus is real, it doesn't go down well with the two atheists. So she sticks to battling. And battle she does, as she Superman and Diana chase Doomsday, both in tandem beautifully. Diana remembers her mother's words. "One day, daughter, you will fit."

"And how will I know, mother?"

"You will know."

And now she knew. The man called 'Batman' produces a green crystal which he insists the monster needs to swallow. Superman seems to insist that the monster does not need to swallow any such thing, that he (Superman) is perfectly capable of handling the monster himself, or (when Diana looks at him) with a little help, and Batman should just stick to frightening criminals and what the hell is up with the macho dominance complex, and why does he think--and Batman pulls out a little pinch of the green stuff out of his pocket and holds it up to Superman's nose, and Superman sniffs it and then shrieks and howls and the two of them altogether seem to be doing more fighting between themselves, so Diana leaves them to it, and flies to take care of Doomsday herself. 

When the two men see themselves brought to shame by the Amazon, they are quick to bury their different hatchets and unearth the common one. The green crystal is handed to Diana: apparently the 'Super' Man can't handle it. He cannot even be in its vicinity. The 'Bat' Man cannot fly. Like all men, Diana reflects, their names are full of hot air once you get down to the nitty-gritty of it. 

So she flies. Superman holds the creature down and seems to pummel it with both his fists while Batman, throwing a dark laugh over his shoulder, zips away, taunting the creature to follow. They are brave, she generously gives them that. Reckless, even: once Batman is nearly squashed underfoot, and Superman screams like his own soul has been trampled upon, but Diana has zipped to the bat's side, and shields him with her own arm bands, bristling with new energy, she flies into the thick of the monster's heart. She descends into its belly, and lays the crystal there. The monster screams, even as it is torn apart from the outside by Superman, Diana pummels it from within with her fists. It smells of an ancient volcano, fire and brimstone, the earth of its gullet shakes under her, tossing her organs inside out as it quakes with the repeated hurls and hits. The great body swerves under her feet and she is thrown up against a foul-smelling slimy wall, as the monster erupts from the inside with a dark green juice. Diana hurls herself upward, but the pass is too slimy to reach the entrance of the throat. 

Outside she hears two voices calling "Diana! Diana!" and she tries to scream back, but her voice falters in her throat. 

"You absolute imbecile," says a voice like an old sword being slipped into a scabbard. With a treacherous lowering of tone it continues, "look what you've done, I'll wager anything she is dead".

"But didn't she say she was Zeus' daughter? did you even see what she could _do?_ " 

"Kent, if Zeus is real then where the _hell_ is he right now, when his own _daughter_ is in the stomach of the goliath?" the voice sharply rasps. "Go and fetch her out!" 

"Okay, sure thing," says the other one, moving away. "But A, it was your idea, and B, if you had even take an interest in Greek mythology like, _ever,_ you would not be saying that. This is _Zeus_ we're talking about. Like, the serial philanderer?" 

Diana, engulfed in something which feels like the skin of frogs and the tongues of lizards moving against her, squelching and sticking to her hair and against her face, shouts "By Hera, if you two do not stop fighting, I will tear this beast open and shut you two up myself!"

That shuts them up. Superman climbs up to the mouth of the beast, with Batman in his arms, who lowers a grappling wire down into the murky depths. Diana is thus rescued, but she doesn't mind, mostly because the men act as if _they_ are indebted to _her_. Which is nice, if not all accurate.

The beast is tied up with the lasso of truth, while Superman, or Kent, insists that it came from his planet while Diana insists it is a representation of the Deity of War Ares. Batman reflects that as long as the beast is dead, he could care less where it emerged from, the less they knew about magical aliens and shape-shifting demigods the better for their collective peace of mind and sleep. Both Superman and Diana have to agree with this assessment. But Diana still notices him hurriedly cut away a sample of the creature's hide with a scalpel when Superman is not noticing. 

When Diana is flying back, Superman lifts to greet her farewell. She ties back her hair into a bun. "I am sorry," he says politely, bowing his head, "that you had to witness that. You see, we snap at each other when we are worried _for_ each other, and war, naturally brings out the worst of that."

"I understand," Diana inclines her head gracefully as well. (This is bullshit--they were fighting long past any danger.)

Superman smiles. His face is one that can be illuminated by a simple spreading of the lips, but now he smiles with his entire face, his eyes, his jaw. His face positively glows. Diana feels...privileged. 

"Are you two lovers?" she asks. 

The hesitant line that passes over Superman's wide, chiseled forehead, as well as the quickening of the pulse on his neck gives him away. He pauses, and then answers softly. "Yes". 

"Ah. That explains a lot." Diana laughs, her bun coming undone with the wild toss of her head. 

"You sound very wise," Superman says.

"I am." She answers with a kind of wide-eyed sincerity "But also--not when it counts, sometimes." 

He laughs. The stars start fading in the east, dawning with a new sun. "I know the feeling."

"If you ever desire me, in the battlefield or in bed, I would be most delighted to come," she says, without any coyness or desperation. But she feels an eager beating in her heart. And in his, upon her words.

He bows gravely, but the muscle in his jaw twitches. "Diana of Themyscira. You would be a most valuable ally." He continues, blushing, "...I..um, well. About that second, ahem, part..."

"Take your time," she answers simply. She turns to the west, the sky rippling with the pure joy of life, red-blooded and hale. She looks down. The Batman has ripped off his shirt, and is leaning over a twisted piece of wreckage which has all the outlines of a car, but none of the inlines. He looks sorrowful, and strokes it with a most brooding shadow over his face. 

"His car," says Superman. "I dare say he loves that thing only second to me."

"I am sorry," she says, without at all feeling sorry. She will never understand the world of men. 

"Well, goodbye, then," Superman says. He looks eager to return to his lover, to check him for injuries. Diana feels fine, and she is sure Superman is unscathed. But she feels the same concern, if not the same degree of it, for the mortal below.

"Yes. Goodbye," she echoes. Her voice is a little loud, meant to be.

Batman looks up. She raises a hand in salute. 

He waves back at her, fingers a little stiff. 

She flies away. Her heart feels free as the wind, beating in tandem with her body. The days of shadow and gore are past. She can tell. 

A new day has come.


	4. Chapter 4

"Clark!" Martha Kent calls. "Come here!" 

Martha Kent is a small woman. She is not given much to shouting. But with Clark, the boy is always floating off somewhere, and she is at the edges of her sanity. Clark and Martha have this comfortable arrangement where neither of them recognizes there is anything wrong with Clark. The fact that the boy has super-hearing and still can't hear his mother when she is shouting right behind him, the fact that his own schoolteacher has complained of his lack of attention in class. The fact that Clark can't sleep at night; the fact that on the day his father died, crushed under the weight of a tractor, Clark was just a few feet away, up in the attic above the barn, reading. And he did not hear his father's groans. 

The fact that Clark Kent has hated himself since that day, every day of his life. The fact that he knows his mother secretly resents him too. 

Martha Kent is very adroit at picking up such signals; not a day goes by that she does not know what is 'up' with Clark. She knows the boy has nightmares, she knows he crawls under her bed when she sleeps at night. She knows this growing distance between her and her own son cannot be breached in any way except time. Time, she hopes, will be merciful to them. 

But Clark's void has grown. It sinks into him when he sleeps; he battles it when he awakes. It is a livid, real thing, black and sticky and glutinous, adhering to him everywhere he goes. The void only grows bigger, and darker, and deeper. He trembles with it, because he is falling into it, day by day, and there is no one to fish him out of it. No one he can call to for help, no one to listen to his voice. And isn't this fitting. That he, Clark, who had ignored the wails of his father because he was so absorbed in the adventures of fucking Saturn Man that his conscious had not even registered anything wrong. 

Clark's mother took him to see a therapist, after that. The therapist had been a patient woman. She had listened. She had asked Clark what he had been thinking of instead. 

"While my father lay dying?" asked a young-faced Clark, squirming.

"Yes," she said understandingly, nodding her head, as if to say 'go on'. 

"Well, I was thinking about Saturn. And how wonderful it would be to live there."

"I see." The old lady had scribbled something in her notebook, and then looked up at him. She had blinked through her reading glasses, her face soft, and full of patient wrinkles. 

"What do you get from that?" Clark leaned forward, and before the lady could snatch it away from him, he read, upside down, in neat cursive handwriting: _escapist tendencies_.

The lady smiled uneasily, and pulled the pad away from him. She turned over a new page, as if it would offer her a fresh perspective.

"I'm sorry, Clark," she had said. "Those are not my final thoughts. Just...initial hunches, as it were. But I can tell you are a very smart boy." (this probably because his face was showing signs of unease. And maybe--guilt?) So tell me about Saturn," she said, sitting back into her lounge chair, crossing her legs. Clark looked at her paisley pattern on her pencil skirt. He could lose himself in all those multicolored swirls, the buttercup and magenta tear drops with the curved floral ends...

ADD was the final diagnosis. Clark had gone home miserable. He could never be cured. Medication would not work on him, and in any case, the damage had already been done. 

If he had been a normal child, he reflected while they drove back, his mother playing some inane sports radio station so that they could be alone with their thoughts, he could have saved his father. 

Now, Clark has become more inattentive than ever. He is deaf and blind to the world. And the worst of it is, his mother doesn't seem to care. 

"I've had enough of you, Clark Kent." 

His mother has never said that. She's never needed to. The sad look in her eyes when she contemplates the extra space on the washing line is enough. The look when she dries the dishes, calm and abstracted, never asking Clark to help. Letting him live in his own damn world. 

It feels like a curse. "Thou shalt walk the Earth..."

"Yes, Momma," he answers, running into the bright yellow kitchen, where his mother is baking. "Yes, I'm here."

But it's too late.

* * *

"Oh no, did I _almost_ see what's on the inside? Did I _almost_ see an insecurity in perfect Clark?!" Bruce shouts, his voice made of rubbered lead. Clark had turned to stone when he reached this part of the story, refusing to go forward, almost wishing he could take back what he had spilled. 

With others, Bruce is the model of perfect equilibrium. The perfect cutting remark, hovering just the right degree above scorn and chilliness. Not with him. With Clark, Bruce unleashes the churning, frothing rage that Clark one day realized he had always coursing through his veins. With _him_ , Bruce turns loose the dam. 

"You're one to talk," says Clark quietly. "You've made wall-building an art, Bruce! It took you three years - three years...!" 

"Three years to what?" Bruce asks querulously, but he knows. 

It had taken Bruce three years to admit to Clark that he had feelings of conjugal felicity when he was around him. That he _liked_ him. That he liked being with him. That he might once in a while even consider that one day he might possibly like to fall in _love_ with him. 

Three years had been worth the wait. Clark approaches his lover. He puts his hands around him, lets the warmth coursing through his body make its way through to Bruce's cold shoulders. He draws him to his chest. Bruce resists at first, but Clark is persuasive, his hands rubbing Bruce's forearms. 

"So finish the story," Bruce says. "Finish it."

"There's nothing more left to say." 

Bruce looks up. His grey eyes have changed, they are bleeding curiosity. "No, there is. What was your mother calling you for?"

"Oh that." Clark's eyebrows twitch upwards. He lets go of Bruce and turns around, pouring himself some whiskey into a crystal tumbler from the side cabinet. They are in Bruce's living room, where the dark teak antiques mixing with the silver sheen of modern evening lights gives the whole an atmosphere of solid unease.

"My mother was calling me for...tea," Clark finishes anticlimactically. His lips twist in rueful scorn. Bruce listens, his hand rubbing his jaw, as he does when he is deep in thought, just at the crux of an argument, or snatching for the key to a problem. 

"Do you know," he says. "When torture victims are kept in sensory deprivation chambers, and our afterwards brought out into the light, sound and smell of the real world, they can react in much the same way you did, shutting out all stimulus too overwhelming, in the process effectually cutting themselves off from reality. It's similar..."

"...to when the body is starved, and then refuses to eat!" Clark finishes for him. His mouth stands half open, the whiskey remains ungulped in his hands. "But why would it happen to me?"

" _Think_ about it Clark!" says Bruce, with enough emphasis on the word 'think' to constitute an insult. "Your body was growing, at that age," he lists slowly, drawling. "Your sensory faculties were expanding. Your mind was trying to shield itself from what it saw as an overwhelming amount of matter to process. It rebounded. You were no more to blame than...why, some poor congenitally deaf or blind child!"

"Hrm." Clark doesn't mention that he may have reached much the same conclusion years ago. That he has absolved himself of his father's death, less because he thought he wasn't at fault anymore, and more because he couldn't handle it. What others call a 'burden' to Clark made him feel unreal, like his body was phasing through things, like things were becoming unreal around him. Like a mirror gone dark, Clark found if he did not light the candle to himself, the candle of forgiveness, of love, he could not hold it to other people. And he could not afford to make that of his life.

And Bruce had seen that. That quiet gloaming in his eyes. And had forgiven him for it. Because that is what Bruce was. Forgiveness. Clark believed Bruce could forgive anyone anything. Anyone except himself.

He hugs Bruce. It's a simple, boyish hug. Nothing gloomy about it. Just sturdy arms and trunk, meeting. Bruce's body goes rigid, first. Then it relaxes, as if by conscious effort. 

"I wish I could hug you forever." Clark says. "You are preeminently huggable."

Bruce laughs. It sounds like the gurgle of a newborn. 


	5. Chapter 5

After the first battle, Diana of Themyscira cannot wait for the next. It may perhaps be an obscene chaotic wish of hers, to obtain the exhilaration at another's expense, for Diana has committed herself to peace, despite only living fully in the thrill of war. The waves kiss the tips of her feet, begging her to stay, but she remembers, looking back, the spot, worn away by time, that all is dust. And now she fights like she doesn't have anything to lose. She doesn't have a destiny, given to her, so she makes one out of herself. All her nights and her days are light and mist. All that remains of her is change. 

Her friends do not stay long out of touch. Diana is heralded on the third day by a jet, unlike any make and model of Man. It is crafted into the shape of a bat's wing. She rushes forward from the temple dedicated to Hippolyta, gold pavilion brushing against the silver border of her chiton and leather sandals. She doesn't know whether or not to be alarmed at this temerity, for no man has stepped on Paradise Island for millennia. A woman's paradise. Haven, their bastion against the multitude of man's cruel tyrannies. 

Well, that is not completely true. There _were_ the Nazis. But those had not lived. 

The Wing of the Bat lands outside the temple, making contact with the land as lightly as feather on dusk. The interior hatch opens, a black petal. A staircase falls. The two men who fought so bravely by her side emerge into the light and climb down, proud of gaze, soft of step. Both are dressed in a more subdued fashion of their earlier costumes. The Bat is wearing a summer version of his earlier suit--this one is more worthy of the appellation "costume", a light gray edged by black cowl. Superman has lost his underwear. His hips look none the worse for it.

His square open face erupts into smiles when he catches sight of Diana, and he rushes forwards, but Batman holds him back by the crook of his elbow. 

He stops, looking a bit confused. 

And there, before the Temple of Themyscira, Batman kneels. Superman realizes, follows suit. They bow their heads before Diana. 

"Grant us the protection belonging to the Queen of Themyscira, Goddess. Grant us safe haven." 

Diana opens up her face and her heart to these newcomers. Fuck old laws, dusty customs. She brushes them away under a new sky, a full heaven, pregnant with flesh, possibility and romance. And error. But it matters not, for she would rather err than remain unashamed. 

"Rise up, friends," she proclaims, her loud, clear voice ringing like crystal. "Today, you do not bow in front of me." She holds out her hands. The two men rise up from their knees, and grasp each hand. Diana feels their power course threw her arteries, spreading in her life blood. She throws her hair back from her in an ebony cloud, and draws them to her, closer. 

"I'm Clark," says Superman, grinning. Batman looks more sulky. 

"He is Bruce," Clark says, after much nudging, which Batman ignored. 

Diana welcomes this confidence with a bow. Then she lifts her face and announces, her voice meeting the stars: 

"We are powerful. We are unique. We are chosen." 

Their faces, the dusky and the bright, are mesmerized. Diana knows: her glow is upon her, she speaks with the likeness of heaven and the voice of a stream. 

"Diana" says Batman, undoing his hand from her clasp, and removing his cowl. Dusky grey eyes meet her frank blue ones. His cheeks are flushed, his forehead noble. Every presence of an aristocratic visage is upon him. Even his nose is a chip off an antique bust. 

"We do not trade in power. We do not _talk_ about power, in this way. _We_ do not choose ourselves; this mission chooses us." 

Clark looks from between Bruce to Diana, and back again. His is a boyish shyness, like a big lumbering oaf - all the clumsy gentility of a giant. 

"Hey, uh, come on, guys. Let's differ this to another time, yeah? and naturally," he says, turning to Diana, "paranoid vigilantes who call themselves 'the Night' and Amazon goddesses are bound to have some differences of opinion when it comes to power. What matters is, at the end, how you _use_ it. Don't you agree, Bruce?" he asks, slapping the other man heartily on the back. 

Bruce arches his back forward, then grimaces. Diana can already see that this alliance is off to a pretty shaky start. 

"Would you care for some victuals?" she asks, as Bruce and Clark glare at each other. 

"Victuals? How do you get any food around here? I don't suppose you order Uber Eats, huh." Clark babbles, looking painfully self-conscious about his babbling, which makes it worse. But Bruce seems to be in no hurry to put him out of his misery. 

"No, no Uber Eats," Diana smiles. All we have here--all _I_ have," she corrects herself, with a slightly woebegone smile, "is some shamefully exotic fruit. And some world-class wine." 

"Sounds good," Bruce says in a hurry. He huffs, looking around at the azure sea stretching at the foot of the ridge, the froth of the curves. Diana gets the distinct sense this is not a man much for nature. The island beauty of Themyscira, the silhouette of the mountainous crags, the silken spread of sea, the emerald pines--all confirm to a symbolic version of Man's idealistic island paradise. Perhaps 'Bruce' is not liking the hold the island held over him. 

She smiles at him, mainly to put herself at ease. Clark looks around, instead, with wonder taken aback, his eyes scanning the whistling wind rocks on the eastern side of the seaface. 

"Follow me," Diana says, leading them indoors. 


	6. Chapter 6

"Do you ever feel lonely, Princess?" Bruce asks her one day, as they lie sprawled across his double bed, enmeshed in a patterned blue and white comforter. 

"Aren't we all lonely?" she answers. "Speaking into our emptying silences, getting no answers?"

"Princess, that's depressing." Clark says from the other side of the bed. "There's solipsism, and then there's that." He looks suspiciously like he's laughing at himself, his glasses askew, his chest bare and sprinkled with hair. 

"Oh, I ask no pity, no remorse of my problems." Diana says. "And unlike the solipsist, I do not blame the universe for my inner thoughts."

Bruce chuckles deeply. 

"What do you make of _that,_ Clark? Our precious princess makes no dreary remarks, except that her inner remarks are dreary."

Diana has yet to get used to Bruce's prickly sass. "And I suppose, Bruce, that _you_ are the keeper of all voids? Perhaps there is a benediction that has never touched you for your presumption."

"If you mean to say I am so sad because I had the nerve to copyright sadness, never. _Prove_ my soul is as black as you say, princess, and I shall get to polishing it to pitch," he finishes, looking deeply, serenely embarrassed by his own repartee, and also not. 

Diana instead bends over him. She brushes her breasts, soft melon, over his face. Bruce makes a mewing sound.

"Here, if ever was, is proof he is the blackest of all scoundrels," Diana says as she rubs her breasts over his face. Bruce cups her nipples in hands, pinching them softly, observing her face. It feels nice; Diana smiles. Taking this as encouragement, Bruce bends his head to suck on them. He takes his time with her; her nipples stand out like beads, erect with attentions, pink and engorged. Clark, ardently watching, reaches down below the sheet with his hand.

Diana throws the sheets back. "You are no coward, Kal-El. Play with yourself in the open."

Clark smiles a brilliant smile, and acquiesces. 

The blanket reveals a phallus large enough to make a satyr jealous, gloriously nesting in a clump of black curls. Bruce looks at Clark and moans, sucking harder, his eyes only for his lover, even as his mouth belongs to another. Clark opens his mouth, revealing his soft pink tongue. His hand ferociously and briskly pumps at his organ, weighing the heft of it in one palm, as Bruce licks and suckles on Diana's breasts with the ardor of a newborn babe.

Bruce reaches down with one hand. Diana guides his hand to Clark's penis, heavy and throbbing with wet slickness. Bruce begins to milk Clark, slowly working his way up and down, down and up, along the length of Clark's spongy tip, down into his heavy balls. Clark groans, nipping at Bruce's shoulder with his teeth. He loves watching Bruce's fist almost swallow his dick when he has it in a firm grip; loves being jerked off by Bruce off like that, using all of his hand, every callus, every rough spot of skin working Clark into a frenzy, driving him higher and higher until he almost _growls_ and starts pumping into Bruce's fist, fucking it, grabbing Bruce wherever he could to get the best leverage to work his hips, always slow and rough at first, then whippet-fast, hands slipping clinging grabbing scratching, trusting Bruce to keep him steady as he lost it. Diana works her hips into Bruce's bulge, arching and thrusting, rubbing her wetness against the now drenched fabric between them --his underwear is not yet off, and she enjoy the big reveal more when there's time taken. She can already feel him hardening, his growth under her pushing her up from his body, as Bruce starts pushing against her too, his hips keep up a gentle rhythm. He keens. She presses her thigh between his legs, against his stiffness; he feels warm, like good brandy, and hard in all the right ways. She bends down and kisses him through his underwear, licking his thickness through the fabric; he arches upward, a growl emanating from the back of his throat. "Diana..."

"Shh."

Just then, heavy white spurts out like a spring of milk as Clark heaves himself off the bed, his hips rising, his moans rising with it. "Fuck!" he says, one sharp, jutting growl ripping out of his throat. 

Bruce, watching, wriggles out of his underwear. His cock is completely erect, and throbbing--the vein at its side thick and blue. He begins thrusting, firm yet chivalrous (if such a thing could be said of a man in so depraved a state as he), into Diana's warmness, right at the center of her legs. Diana pushes him down. She sees the ardor in his eyes, the pleasure, the pain. The pleading.

"Say it," she rasps. Her own body is flushed with heat. Warmth leaks out between her thighs, flooding out from her centre, driving her insane with anticipation. She leans down to capture Bruce's mouth in hers. It tastes of summer sweet. "Say please."

But Bruce, in his hubris, refuses to beg. Clark, however, seeing Diana's arse, also sees the reasonableness of her proposal. He brings his hips, with his giant cock, in line with Diana's ass crack, rubbing against her, slowly, teasing. Lascivious. The fluid from his cock leaves a line of wetness between his thighs and abdomen, and Bruce wants to rub his face in it, lick it up, but right now he's too busy enjoying Diana's reaction to this freestyle seduction. She looks bemused, more with her body's reaction to Clark, than with Clark himself. 

"Please let me have you, Princess," Clark purrs, his eyes shining with mirth. 

Clark's Krypronian biology gives him the very fortunate capacity to come for hours. Inexhaustably. 

Diana turns around, her breasts translucent pillows of soft honey, her hair streaming down her back in wild curls, her pink pussy engorged with lust.

Clark swallows. 

"You look...terrifying, princess," he mutters, looking her up and down. Bruce and Diana do not fail to notice the twitch of his cock at the sight of her, in all her Amazon primal glory, the swan neck offered forward as an offering to Clark, to be bitten into, fresh and white and blushing. She looks awe-inspiring and needy at the same time, Clark has the urge to kneel in front of her and kiss the soles of her feet, starting from the soft insole all the way to her navel, that column of throat, those full red lips. 

And so he does. With thick lips and wicked tongue, he sucks and nips his way upward. Diana looks down at the kneeling Kryptonian, and on an impulse draws him up to her breast.

"Suck," she commands, and Clark obeys, his lips gently pulling her nipple into the warm depths of his mouth. 

Diana tastes of lemon rind and honeysuckle. Clark can smell the open air, the fresh breeze on her body, in her hair. He breathes in, deeply. 

"Get to the good stuff," Bruce says, impatient. He shifts, his cock under him, and starts rubbing against the delicate friction of the sheet. 

And so they do it like bunnies, right in front of a scowling Bruce. Clark and Diana, their hips moving in tandem, leaned over each other, each one of them gripping and fighting and greedily demanding. As their hips love with a filthily obscene sound, Clark's eyes meet Bruce's. They send a dark shiver through him, through his veins, coiling around his spinal cord. Bruce bites his lower lip to the blood, busting his balls to the root with his hand, as Clark watches and rocks in and out, flexing his hips to full effect, his face flushed, his hair standing vertically, the pinkness on his cheeks spreading to the roots of his hair, meeting him eye to eye, thrust for thrust. 

Diana lets out an oomph and throws her head back, her body sending out pulses like a jet stream, warm blood coiling in the blood vessel in her clitoris. Clark reaches forward and fondles her, sending fresh warmth into his hands, he thrusts into her with one hand, in tandem with his cock, his other hand shoved down her throat. Diana can taste the salt on his fingertips--he feels gigantic, like he's tearing her apart from all sides. Fireworks flash on the inside of her eyeballs, one perfect moment of mindlessness.

She opens her eyes. And sees a very hungry, very sorry Bruce looking at her. 

She smiles. 

* * *

Clark gets up and blinks. The Barber of Seville plays in the background somewhere. He raises his rumpled head from the foam pillow and looks about the whitewashed room. What _is_ Bruce's obsession with white? Bruce's apartment, where Bruce retreats for encounters of a discrete nature, lies in a small corridor of Gotham called the 'Underlight'. It isn't a penthouse, or anything you would expect a billionaire to own, nor is it a squalid rundown place meant expressly for slumming it. It is a decent, respectable-sized four-roomed apartment, well beyond minimalistic and landing square into spartan. A bed, a chair and a dressing table are the only items of furniture in the room, each of a solid, respectable nature. A ceiling fan beats high up, the glare of the whitewash beating off its blades. 

Diana lies by his side on her stomach, her hand folded under her, her hair spread all over her back. She seems to be sleeping soundly. Clark raises his head some more to look for any sign of Bruce, but there is none. Bruce is gone. The wall clock ticks empty, inexorable. He looks at it. 

"Shit," he says, getting up and throwing off the bed covers. Of course Bruce is gone! it's five in the fucking morning--the guy must have already been on patrol and must be heading home by now! Why--and how--had Clark gotten so knocked off his bearings? He guiltily puts on his shirt. What if Bruce is in trouble? The kidnapping case, the Riddler, the Siamese drug cartel--any _one_ of those things could be giving him trouble right now. He could be lying broken in a dirt ditch somewhere, he could be hanging in four pieces from four different gargoyle heads, he could be--

Clark bends over, hyperventilating. his head hangs between his knees, drawing large mouthfuls of air into his lungs. His chest burns like liquid lead has been poured into them in place of air. He gasps, coughing, choking--

"Kal El," says a gentle voice, and then a hand soothes his back. Over and over, it rubs him, firmly. The hand is warm, and Clark gathers his air, and his faculties. _He's strong, he's strong_ , cycles mentally, over and over, in his mind. It's his mantra. Normally he would say it aloud, but now with Diana in the room, he can't bring himself to face the indignity of repeating it like some lullaby.

He turns around. Diana is dressed, her large, flowing tunic dress coming over her knees and elbows like one garment, shifting and molding itself to her. Clark bends to her, to give her a kiss. She stays him with one hand between them. His bare chest burns. 

"Go to him," Diana says. 

_Thank you for understanding_ , Clark mentally telegraphs as he zips out.


	7. i can see paradise by the dashboard light

_we were abandoned, all three. we found each other because we are doubly blessed._

_the night isn't so cold anymore. but my night is colder, now i have two sore bleeding hearts to care for, more mine than my own._

_i do not seek to be abandoned. But I fear abandonment is coming my way. i, amazonprincessgoddess, fear._

_i wish this lasts forever._

_if I have to spend another minute here, i shall lose the fight_

_i can't take this any longer_

_they aren't happy_

_i can hold no candlelight to my wonder at this season lasting so long_

_my wings sprout. Let me, by Jove, take flight_

_passion blooms, the frost never touches it. I wait for the ghost of the ice to return._

_to greet the new sunrise with an old expectation is the curse that has been blooming within me since my birth, that second alley time._

_i let go of the cliff. i always let go of the cliff._

_my eyes burn. it spreads like cancer, my lack of fit. I never fit. always too small, too big, too..._

_do i deserve. have i ever deserved. any._

_do i care for Kal-El because he reminds me of who i am? history only real because uttered on hearts, still fresh?_

_do we even have any idea where this is headed? or do we grope blind, deaf to all echoes but our own?_

_i will love them till my breath draws me one last time. it forsakes me, my strength to resist. is that a good thing?_

_the ice cracks. the summer warms our failures and our many blights._

_we stare into our drinks, waiting for the ice to melt._

_when we stop being us, i will always remember this. little of everything._

_all we need is a wake up call. this is beautiful, our plight. the heavens rejoice. it is celestial. i feel it._

_mama always told me to pack for a road trip. where's the map? where's the fucking map???_

_our lies run parallel with each other. the things we tell ourselves come undone when we last long enough in the skylight_

_some things aren't black and white. we are._

_they call me the strongest. then these chains holding me down, keeping me from my friends, must surely be misplaced, be someone else's?_

_our courage is three parts fear. one part faith._

_it comes to me when i'm fitful, it remains when i'm sure._

_I want Ma and Pa's sunshine forgiving my bones before i can luxuriate in mistakes._

_is he ready to walk away? when all is pain out there, and only in here do things slowly come back to their senses?_

_Kal, don't leave. With you goes out all our soul, all our heart, leaving a bereft nest that once used to_

_i want to fall so i'll have an excuse to cry..._

_we hold on to our own. we have our ways. not this time._

_we'll never fail you, Kal._

_i've paid my dues as a child. i'm still paying my dues. i'm still a child._

_i've had nothing to look down for, nothing to fear, nothing to laugh at._

_some of us have been holding in us children, afraid of beatings. some of us take refuge in acting as children, to escape beatings. i name no names._

_is it written in the stars? like they say in the movies? the stars for me only ever spelled bad dreams. dreams of home._

_everything is as bad as it seems._

_the fight is running away from me, i chase it down. humanity deserves better from its gods. Kal and Bruce deserve better._

_we don't deserve better. we make our homes when we've got what we think we should've got. that's all._

_i offer no thanks on my knees. my bruises brush against the earth every time i try to kneel._

_i remember a happy time of friends and family. i suppose i should thank the vomit of my past for my present?_

_we like ending on a positive note because anything else scares us. our old scars itch of the abyss._

_the waves make no notion of staying the same. and so they drift, and it's all the same. but it is not in our nature to drift. and yet we do. so...it is in our nature, then. Somehow._

_the past and the future look the same. but they_ must _look different, and they do. for they are too much of one to be two; as lovers, always separated, always together_


End file.
